The Heartland Institute: Undermining Science in the Name of the "Scientific Method"

I must confess, I’m less and less motivated these days to write posts debunking climate change skeptics and deniers. Their minds don’t change, and fighting over climate science may just make us polarized—especially since mounting evidence suggests the climate divide is really more about values than science to begin with, and science is simply the preferred weapon in a clash over different views of how society (and especially the relationship between the government and the market) should be structured.

Sometimes, though, you just can’t resist blasting away. This is one of those times.

The Heartland Institute is having yet another conference to undermine climate science, and this time, they are flying it under this banner: “Restoring the Scientific Method.” It’s like they think they are now Francis Bacon (at left) or something. Here’s how they describe the conference, which will be set in Washington, D.C., at the end of June:

The theme of the conference, “Restoring the Scientific Method,” acknowledges the fact that claims of scientific certainty and predictions of climate catastrophes are based on “post-normal science,” which substitutes claims of consensus for the scientific method. This choice has had terrible consequences for science and society. Abandoning the scientific method led to the “Climategate” scandal and the errors and abuses of peer review by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Thescientists speakingat this conference, and the hundreds more who are expected to attend, are committed to restoring the scientific method. This means abandoning the failed hypothesis of man-made climate change, and using real science and sound economics to improve our understanding of the planet’s ever-changing climate.

One hardly knows where to begin with this. Heartland gives no account of what it actually means by the “scientific method”–and defining the scientific method is notoriously difficult anyway, as scholars of science studies know all too well. I also am not really sure what Heartland means by “post-normal science,” but their definition does not seem consistent with what the scholars who came up with the concept actually had in mind.

But these are minor matters, merely the sort of things that academics write books about. Set them aside, because it’s obvious where this is all heading.

Heartland is having a conference to define climate change skepticism as the right “science,” and the work of the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences as the “wrong” science, or not science at all. The argument is couched as a matter of scientific methodology, but really, it boils down to “my expert is better than your expert”—along with a good dose of “your expert is biased and corrupt.”

But the thing is, we can tell from this mere snippet that Heartland’s “scientific method” is unreliable. It’s screaming from the page.

If the scientific mindset means anything at all, it means trying to control one’s biases by never being too sure of one’s preconceptions. That’s why Bacon, one of the pioneers of modern science, warned us to be wary of the “idols of the mind“–a series of prejudices that sound a lot like what psychologists now recognize as textbook cognitive biases.

Anyone who can call human-caused global warming a “failed hypothesis” isn’t paying very close attention to Baconian warnings. A very very large number of scientists see it as a very serious “hypothesis” indeed, so calling it “failed” sounds awfully hubristic.

Meanwhile, Heartland also claims these mainstream scientists are making a claim to “scientific certainty” when they aren’t. Scientific certainty is literally an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. We may try to approach it but we never get there, and the IPCC has never said the science of climate is “certain.”

Heartland is thus misrepresenting its opponents–ironically claiming that they possess “certainty” when really, it’s Heartland that’s willing to blithely to toss aside the idea that humans are causing global warming, despite the weight of expert opinion. If that’s not unwarranted certainty, I don’t know what is.

So yeah, the scientific method is notoriously hard to define–but sometimes we can know it from its absence. If you’re convinced you’re right and the bulk of mainstream scientists, expert bodies, and scientific societies are wrong on climate change…well, you’re not exactly making Francis Bacon proud.

“sound economics” may have nothing to do with understanding climate change, but they have everything to do with dealing with it.

Or, rather, not dealing with it. “Sound economics” means in here the classic Tragedy of the Commons, in which people are not willing to accept that their economic behaviour has a cost, and that cost will have to be paid. Almost certainly in the matter of reducing energy use, i.e. standard of living.

When you face the uncomfortable fact that someone, somewhere, which - gasp - might be you, is going to have to reduce his standard of living, then you might be more than willing to say that this cost does not exist, that the climate foreclosure is not coming, and everything can stay the same. Or better. If you can’t accept the conclusion, then you can’t accept the premises. Ergo, climate change is not happening.

Good point, and well said. My env studies prof pointed out that people are so easily thrown off by the far right - the right attacks, and people immediately try to defend themselves, so they are always end up on the defensive and off-point, when the right is RIPE for pointing out inconsistencies and shortcomings.

You guys really should watch Cool-it. It is an excellent documentary and shows nicely what the problem really is.AGW as a theory failed the Scientific Method test completely.
A theory must be dropped when one test of its validity is shown.
Many many tests of AGW have failed and Everyone knows it.
Only politically driven idiologues still cling to the agenda in futile hope they can still mold society to their socialist views.

Meanwhile trillions of dollars are wasted every year fighting a non existant problem.
Many “Real” problems could be solved completely with that money.

That is the “sound economics” message.

The only thing that will be accomplished by the current agenda is a lowering of living standards and a severe reduction of personal freedoms and rights.

“You guys really should watch Cool-it. It is an excellent documentary and shows nicely what the problem really is.”

Your opinion of excellent documentaries is sadly lacking & you ability to cross reference the things said in that book/film are also lacking. The book & film were thoroughly destroyed.

Excerpt: “Lomborg has a very well developed ability to persuade people not to hear the other side of the conflict”

The film:

http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/Coolitfilm.htm

Excerpt: The film includes several shots of an interview with the climatologist Stephen Schneider. Schneider died in July 2010, and the film-makers then chose to dedicate the film to him.
Schneider was very much in opposition to Lomborg.

The books British & American versions:

http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/coolit.htm

Wow! $26,487 in sales for the movie! http://climateprogress.org/2010/11/22/bjorn-lomborg-debunked-op-ed-cool-it/

I realize Chris Mooney is not a spokesman for the AGW version, but his statement above is telling: “science is simply the preferred weapon in a clash over different views of how society (and especially the relationship between the government and the market) should be structured.” That suggest that AGW is not a scientific pursuit but a political agenda. Something they usually deny vehemently.

Also telling is that he thinks the scientific method is subjective: “defining the scientific method is notoriously difficult anyway, as scholars of science studies know all too well.”

He even uses Bacon to defend consensus science: “If you’re convinced you’re right and the bulk of mainstream scientists, expert bodies, and scientific societies are wrong on climate change…well, you’re not exactly making Francis Bacon proud.”

If you want to see science done properly, climate research is not where you should look. They could turn out to be right, but only accidentally.

“The problem, it seems, is not that members of the public are unexposed or indifferent to what scientists say, but rather that they disagree about what scientists are telling them.”

And this:

“Of course, laypeople are not in a position either to investigate for themselves or fully to under-stand the technical data compiled by scientific researchers on risks of these sorts. They must therefore turn for assistance to experts. One might thus anticipate (or at least hope) that regardless of the tendency of predispositions and biased information processing to push people of opposing cultural outlooks apart, the need of all them for expert guidance would cause them to gravitate toward the consensus positions among scientists.
The difficulty for this suggestion, however, is that it assumes individuals of diverse outlooks will by and large agree on what scientific consensus is. The process by which individuals form beliefs about expert opinion might itself be subject to the dynamics of cultural cognition. If so, individuals’ perceptions of scientific consensus will come to fit their cultural predispositions toward risk generally.”

1) But Cool It! used very clever tactics to appeal to or confuse many groups. See this for a dissection.

2) Heartland is #5. For the history and participants, see Crescendo to Climategate Cacophony, posted here March 2010. p.97 has a matrix of people vs activities, and Heart#1-#3 were the earlier ones; Heart#4 was in 2010, after March, and Heart#5 is on the way to eager acolytes.

However, they do seem to be having trouble conjuring up many new speakers.

It is clear that you do not care what the science says about global warming.If your values do not countenance the ability for humans to have an impact on the global climate system and the biosphere then fine, at least say that, be honest. Hiding behind bizarre rhetoric and illogical talking points wont address the fact that you do not take the science seriously because you are scared of the potential consequences of global warming so it is easier to deny its existence, it is more comfortable to do so.

Anthropogenic global warming is not a hoax or a fraud, it is an honest if not perfect attempt to understand the impact of six billion humans on the world. If you would like to quietly consider the impacts of global environmental change and the potential solutions, I would point you to these videos that were recorded during the recent Nobel Laureate symposium in Stockholm. Transformation to a sustainable world and limiting our impact on the climate should be empowering and exciting, not scary

«This means abandoning the failed hypothesis of man-made climate change, and using real science and sound economics to improve our understanding of the planet’s ever-changing climate.»

OK. one must abandon one (failed?) hypothesis and use «real science and *and* [notice this little *and] sound [sound!] economics to improve our understanding of the planet’s ever-changing climate».

That means they are *sure* that the hypothesis failed and ask us to rely on real science and *sound economics* to understand the evolution of the climate. Does that mean that the climate depends on interest rate or something? That «real science» must marry «sound economics» to understand the cosmos? Why didn´t Niels Bohr think of that?

Oh, by the way, is «sound economics» real science or some magic thinking? Or are they just morons that can´t write a simple sentence in plain English?

George Lakoff is of help here, and pardon me as I stumble in my explanation of his work – the market is the fundamental political regime in the minds of conservatives/right wingers. It’s not a metaphor for something else to them, it is the sole legitimate underlying political body, or, to put it another way, it is the source of political legitimacy.

http://georgelakoff.com/2011/02/19/what-conservatives-really-want/

We can see how global warming is threatening to them if their most important core belief is wrong, which is an unacceptable truth, one that must be mentally suppressed in order to preserve one’s image of oneself. In other words, the term denialism should but understood in the true Freudian sense as a defense mechanism. When the ‘self’ or ego is threatened (rather than physical self which is threatened in capture bonding), the threatening information is attacked.

Whether intended or not, the idea of using the market makes great sense, since legislation alone can be ineffective. That was the beauty of the proposed cap-and-trade legislation. An endogenous variable limits greenhouse emissions and the market does the rest. And even the previously unmeasured externalities could be calculated and included.

One last time. The debate is not about wheather or not there was a small increase in global temperature in the 1990s.

The debate is about what caused it.

There are of course many perfectly natural explainations and one Failed Hypothesis about a harmless trace gas havein caused it.

All the latest science (real science) points to the fact that it was and is perfectly natural and the infleuence of the tiny about of man made CO2 is barly measurable.
In fact it may not even be measureble.
The Real science refered to in this article obays the rules that state one must always be sceptical and when a theory fails one test it Must be re-examined and changed.

There is a denial debate on it still, but the denialists have been trying to manufacture doubt for 50 years.

The REAL debate is “what should we do about it”, but denialists can’t just leave it to that, because they KNOW it’s all about communism or hairshirt ecos taking over.

So they have to maintain that.

The latest science (and it is the real science rather than your vacuous post) shows that we’re likely running at a sensitivity of 3.4C per doubling of CO2 and that CO2 isn’t a trace gas for IR, even if you so dearly want to believe that you’re willing to lie time and time again to say it.

“The Real science refered to in this article obays the rules that state one must always be sceptical”

Try it. Rather than be in denial, be skeptical about “CO2 is a trace gas”.

Go on.

“one must always be sceptical and when a theory fails one test it Must be re-examined and changed.”

Yes. Waay back “CO2 is saturated” was an theory why Arrhenius was wrong.

But data has proven that theory wrong and denialists (as opposed to the skeptics) still insist that CO2 is a trace gas and can’t have any effect.

The latest science (and it is the real science rather than your vacuous post) shows that we’re likely running at a sensitivity of 3.4C per doubling of CO2

Source please, I’d like to see the calculations. We’ve already passed the half way point to doubling of CO2 (logarithmic scale) from 280ppm to 400 ppm and I haven’t seen 2C degrees of warming but rather only a +.7C degree change in delta T.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from/trend

The global decadal trend for 32 years of satellite measurement at RSS and UAH, is down to .14C degrees/decade of warming. See here.
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2011/february/2_11GTR.pdf

Is your 3.4C sensitivity figure account for the ocean heat uptake problem that has led James Hansen to admit, “Our principal conclusions, that the slow response function is unrealistically slow, and thus the corresponding net human-made climate forcing is unrealistically large, are supported by implications of the slow response function for ocean mixing.”

Hi There,
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“we encourage commenters to include links to supporting information as this helps enrich the conversation.”

Then why haven’t 50% of the posts on that mammoth 751 post thread been deleted? Why are deniers allowed to slander, libel, make accusations of fraud against honest scientists? That is far worse than the petty name calling on this thread.

The deniers are being given a free ride to post all the denier drivel that is found on the denier blogs. They have been banned or moderated on the good science blogs so they are coming here to post there drivel.

This blog is supposed to “clear the PR pollution that clouds climate science”. Sorry, but that is not happening since you are allowing the deniers to pollute this site and, in fact, allowing them to blow their filthy “smoke” into the faces of honest posters here who are trying to get the science to the forefront.

Please re-think your attitude to what is going on here.

Many posters who frequented this blog in the past have quit posting because of the rudeness and insults from the deniers. It takes a lot of effort and time for knowledgeable people to show how dishonest the deniers are, in tracking down papers which show that the deniers are wrong. When the deniers just insult the poster and shrug of the comments and citations with an insult it is no wonder that people get up set with the deniers.

This blog is becoming an echo-chamber for the denier non-science. Please ensure that your comment policy ensures that lies and dishonest rubbish is not allowed to pollute this blog. I feel sorry for the people who are the original posters on a thread and have deniers descend in great numbers and insult them. They appear to get no support from the people running the blog. That has to change if you want knowledgeable people to continue to post here. This is my last post until I see proper moderation of the insults, lies and dishonesty shown by the deniers.

Interesting. The topic of this page it an attack on the Heartland Institute for holding a climate conference and how this violates the spirit of scientific inquiry. One assumes the comment section if here for people to express their views on this.

Yet you are saying that only views agreeing with your own should be allowed. Indeed, that is the case on some pro-AGW blogs. I’m not an expert in the ethics of scientific inquiry, but I suspect that outright censorship such as you request is not on. Might as well not have a comment section.

You are also a little off the mark about who is the source of incivility on this page. If you search for four-letter-words, people being called liars, and general name-calling such as “idiot” or “moron”, you will find these originate mostly (if not exclusively) from your side of the fence. Proud of that?

BTW, “denier” is also crude name-calling. It is both disrespectful and inaccurate.

So out of that, increases in CO2 increased H2O’s effect 68/21 = 3.238 and that would have to be upped since methane clathrates are there to be boiled off.

Therefore 3.238 times as much warming will result from H2O’s effect (and this includes ALL the forcings we’ve had so far: all them clouds and stuff).

Since actual calculation from the same radiative QM theories that make your LED lightbulbs work, your BluRay player read a disk and has been thoroughly tested gives a 1.2C warming from a doubling of CO2, the temperature increase from a doubling of CO2 would give: 3.936C warming.

The ONLY model used there is a radiative model. No climate model. No computer necessary. And the actual observations of temperature on this planet and the gasses on this earth.

The Heartland Institute has a long history of shilling for corporate lepers. Since 1993, it has received $190,000 from Philip Morris USA and maintains a smokers’ rights section on its website called “The Smoker’s Lounge.” Its global warming section is more active. It features a handy list of denial talking points (“Scores of peer-reviewed studies contradict global warming alarmism”) and links to full-page ads Heartland has run in the Washington Post decrying the media for hyping “false claims of impending ‘planetary emergencies.’”

Heartland, which has received $670,000 from ExxonMobil and its foundations since 1998, views itself as a bulwark against a leftist domino effect. “Fighting global warming extremism is essential,” its website says, “if we are to stop a resurgence of radical environmentalism and left liberalism on a wide range of other public policy issues.”

The Heartland Institute has a long history of shilling for corporate lepers. Since 1993, it has received $190,000 from Philip Morris USA and maintains a smokers’ rights section on its website called “The Smoker’s Lounge.” Its global warming section is more active. It features a handy list of denial talking points (“Scores of peer-reviewed studies contradict global warming alarmism”) and links to full-page ads Heartland has run in the Washington Post decrying the media for hyping “false claims of impending ‘planetary emergencies.’”

Heartland, which has received $670,000 from ExxonMobil and its foundations since 1998, views itself as a bulwark against a leftist domino effect. “Fighting global warming extremism is essential,” its website says, “if we are to stop a resurgence of radical environmentalism and left liberalism on a wide range of other public policy issues.”

Chris- I wish somehow that this fundamental point you make could be at the core of basic secondary school science education. Instead, children and adults are taught: “Science says this, and Science says that…” as if “Science” is a supernatural Being which we worship (without actually acknowledging that we worship it)and makes oracle-like proclamations. Science is a process; it is a process of observing, attempting to explain, and then knocking down as many possible explanations for the observed phenomenon as possible until only one plausible explanation still stands. This is then submitted for review by others who have worked in the same area of knowledge and it is their duty to attempt to knock down what still stands. If no one can knock it down, unlike in the case of “cold fusion,” then the community accepts it as a plausible explanation, but not as absolute and forever irrefutable “fact.” No one should be allowed to graduate from high school without complete comprehension of this concept.

We tell kids that 1+1=2 yet we don’t explain that set theory states that this is the case.

When they get to A level or graduate where they have the background they can then be told why those truths are true.

But you have to make stuff up to cast science in a bad light because science is ruining your comfortable lies.

“Science is a process; it is a process of observing, attempting to explain, and then knocking down as many possible explanations for the observed phenomenon as possible until only one plausible explanation still stands.”

Which has been done.

No other explanation of the current warming trend works unless we include CO2 at the rate which humans are adding it to the atmosphere.

Yet still denialists insist that “something else” is the cause.

Odd that you complain that science isn’t doing this when it’s the anti-science denialists doing it. And you remain silent on it there.

“No one should be allowed to graduate from high school without complete comprehension of this concept.”

No one leaving high school having studied physics has left without understanding that.

I am not sure of your position… my point is that indeed, the scientific community has been doing the proper scientific process, and anthropogenic climate change is still standing. But kids dont graduate from high school understanding this process. If they did, the public wouldnt be so damn gullible when they hear the claims of the confusionists. But the education system is a failure in so many ways, and its biggest failure is in teaching young people to weigh evidence, seriously consider the sources of evidence and how that information gathering is sponsored, and think critically about what claims are being made. If nearly all of the worlds climate scholars agree that anthropogenic climate change is real, and that this pronouncement is a result of a rigorous peer-review process, then anyone who received a proper education should not dispute it. How many high school seniors do you know who can explain what peer review process means?

A large body of evidence supports the conclusion that human activity is the primary driver of recent warming. This evidence has accumulated over several decades, and from hundreds of studies. The first line of evidence is our basic physical understanding of how greenhouse gases trap heat, how the climate system responds to increases in greenhouse gases, and how other human and natural factors influence climate.

The second line of evidence is from indirect estimates of climate changes over the last 1,000 to 2,000 years. These estimates are often obtained from living things and their remains (like tree rings and corals) which provide a natural archive of climate variations. These indicators show that the recent temperature rise is clearly unusual in at least the last 1,000 years.

The third line of evidence is based on comparisons of actual climate with computer models of how we expect climate to behave under certain human influences. For example, when climate models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases, they show gradual warming of the Earth and ocean surface, increases in ocean heat content, a rise in global sea level, and general retreat of sea ice and snow cover. These and other aspects of modeled climate change are in agreement with observations.

Have you looked at the tree ring data? Some of it is at: http://treering.ru/

What is readily apparent is that this is a very, very noisy signal. Not surprising that when you correlate it all you get a very noisy flatline. Thus the hockey-stick handle. The noise alone may explain the lack of apparent temperature change in past centuries. Another confounding factor is that tree ring thickness does not depend on temperature alone. It will also be influenced by cloud cover, competing vegetation, rainfall, insect populations, what part of the tree the core is taken from, how the thickness of a given ring changes over the life of a tree, etc.. This correlation, when used as a measure of temperature, would have you believe that historical records of climate for the same area are wrong - that there were no climate changes despite what people at the time recorded.

The analysis has since been adjusted (in any other field of science this would taint the researcher’s credibility) to show a weak MWP and LIA effect. But it still cannot realistically be grafted onto recent thermometer data. If you are using tree rings as your thermometer, you have to keep using tree rings as you thermometer to the present. My understanding is that if you do that, the recent warming is much less apparent.

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